Beyond the Duties of a Brother
by a.lakewood
Summary: Pre-series. Gen. Dean plays a key role in Sam's application process.


Title: Beyond the Duties of a Brother  
Author: alakewood  
Warnings: Spoiler for _Pilot_, maybe.  
Rating: PG  
Word Count: ~1840  
Summary: Pre-series. Dean plays a key role in Sam's application process. Possibly the first story in a series.  
Disclaimer: As always, I own nothing.

**oxoxo**

Just like he had every night that week, Sam closed himself in his room as soon as he got home from school. With John gone on a hunt, Dean was on his own to keep himself occupied – he'd been on the couch all day watching daytime soaps and talk shows. At least _Jeopardy_ had been on as Sam came in, so he didn't seem like such a tool.

But Dean was _bored_. And it was Friday night. _And_ it was Sam's senior year – there couldn't be _that_ much homework for him to do.

Dean aimed the remote at the TV, pressed the 'off' button, then tossed it onto the cushion beside him as he got up to head for Sam's room. He flung the door open. "Dude, put away your midget porn and..." he trailed off as Sam shoved something under his blankets. The grin on Dean's face was instantly devious. "Nice. Better not be midgets, though."

"Dean, don't!" Sam nearly begged, but Dean was already pulling the covers back.

"Uh, _dude?_ Not porn." Dean held up a stack of papers – filled with Sam's neat scrawl – and leafed through them.

Sam's stomach dropped as Dean's grin disappeared. "Dean...I."

"Wow, Sammy. College, huh?"

"I was gonna tell you."

"Yeah? When? When you left?"

Sam shook his head vehemently, eyebrows scrunched together as he tried to think of some way to _fix this_. "No!"

"Would you even say anything at all?" He dropped the applications to the mattress and turned towards the door.

"_Dean_." Sam's voice was quiet. "I've been working so _hard_. Is it so bad that I want more than this?"

When Dean turned back around, there was an expression on his face that Sam didn't recognize, but it passed before he could question it and Dean was already talking. "No, Sammy. It's great. I, uh...I'm just gonna go out, all right? Don't wait up."

**oxo**

By some miracle, the Winchester's still hadn't moved as the deadlines for Sam's applications approached, Dean had noticed. The papers were hidden in the space between Sam's mattress and box spring – that sacred space reserved for porn collections, Dean thought sadly.

However, miracles in the Winchester family were always followed by disaster.

Sam was at school and John was following up on a lead so Dean forced himself to do a weapons check. He had his Colt .45 apart on the coffee table in front of him when John burst through the door.

"Start packing," John ordered. "Only what you need. Sam's things, too. Everything in the car in ten."

Dean could only stare after his father for a moment before he started putting the pieces of his gun back together and returned it to the small weapons chest. His first stop was Sam's room. Books, clothes, anything Sam might bitch about having been left behind, Dean took to the car first. The he set about his own belongings. He was passing by John on the way to the car when he remembered Sam's applications. He returned to his brother's room and stuffed the papers into the bottom of his duffle under a bunch of dirty clothes.

When they picked Sam up from school, citing a family emergency, Sam didn't ask about the letter that determined his future.

"We can make a quick swing back by the apartment," Dean said, ignoring the glare he got from John, "if I forgot something important."

"No," Sam said. "Everything's here."

"Everything?"

Sam sighed, closing his eyes as he sunk back into the seat. "Yeah. What else is there?"

**oxo**

They arrived at Bobby's the following night. John dropped Sam and Dean off then headed for the nearest bar – standard operating procedure when a hunt went bad. Sam had immediately gone to bed, closing himself away in the room he and Dean had shared for the past seven years.

Dean, meanwhile, took Bobby aside and unearthed Sam's applications from his bag. "You can't say anything to Dad. _Or_ Sam," he said, pushing aside clothes to get to the bottom.

Bobby looked apprehensive as he said, "Won't, kid. Promise."

"These are Sam's. He thinks they got left behind when we left today but he acts like he doesn't care. They're due soon and I don't know why he hasn't sent them in. If he wants a normal life so much, why does he still have them?" he questioned in a rush.

"I can't tell you that, Dean. Did you ask Sam?"

Dean's expression seemed to ask _Are you crazy?_, but instead he said, "No. I don't want to talk to him about this. I don't want him to _leave_."

"They why did you save these?"

"_He_ wants to go. Sam's a really smart kid, Bobby." The way he said 'kid' made it sound as though there were decades between their ages and it made Bobby realized how fast Dean had grown up and how much he'd protected Sam from. "He deserves this." He handed the small stack of papers to Bobby.

"So what do you want me to do?"

**oxo**

Dean had barely made it through the apartment door when the bottom of the bag containing first aid supplies busted out, spilling rolls of gauze and tape across the floor. "Shit," he muttered, then dropped the rest of the bag completely and stepping over the mess towards the kitchen.

"You got a package in the mail from Bobby," Sam said from the kitchen table behind him. The early spring sunlight streaming in the window made it nearly impossible to see the expression on Sam's face.

"It's probably that book Dad wanted," Dean answered cautiously.

"That's what I thought at first, too. But...why would Bobby address it to _you_ instead of Dad?" Sam pushed the cardboard UPS box across the table, out of the glare of sunlight. Another harder push made a few of the thick envelopes stick out the open end of the box.

Dean reached for the top one. "There's a lot of stuff in here – that's good, right? If it wasn't good news, it'd be thinner."

"That is so beside the point, Dean," he said, shoving his chair back as he stood. "Why'd you do it?"

Dean shrugged, tipping the box up so everything inside slid onto the table. "Didn't seem like you were going to so-"

"So you just took it upon yourself-"

"Hey! I was just trying to help."

"That's what I don't understand. _Why?_"

He shrugged again, tearing open the envelope from Stanford. "Great minds have purposes," he began, handing the letter to Sam, "little minds have...orders to follow."

"Dean." Sam was just staring at his brother.

"You got in," Dean said, gesturing to the Stanford letter with an envelope from NYU. "What do you want to bet that you got into every single one of the schools you applied to?"

"Dean."

"There's a bigger life out there for you. A better life. You deserve _better_."

"What about you? Don't you deserve more than this, too?"

"Great mind," Dean said, pointing at Sam with the NYU letter, then tapping his own chest, "little mind. Keep up, college boy."

"You're not small-minded."

Yet another shrug. "I just don't have the options you do."

"You _could_."

He shook his head. "No. This is what I am, Sammy. This is it. But you..."

"Why should I be any different?"

"Because you always have been."

"That's not true."

"It is. You've just never noticed."

"That's not good enough." He tossed the acceptance letter onto the table.

"_You_ are."

Sam scoffed, nostrils flaring, as he shook his head. "I'm not."

Dean sighed heavily. "Look, I don't want to argue with you about this."

"Then stop pushing it."

"I don't want you to regret not going. I don't want to be the reason. I don't want you to resent me for it."

"I wouldn't."

"You would." Dean took a couple steps closer to Sam and set the letter in his hands onto the pile. "Sam." He shook his head. "I want you to go."

"Liar."

"I want the best for you, I do. I'd just rather be there with you for it, you know?"

"You can be."

"No, I can't. This is my job, my _life_, Sam."

"It doesn't have to be."

"It _does_," Dean said forcefully. "I'm not gonna be like Dad and hold you back, Sam. You're doing this, and I won't accept anything else from you."

"It's not your choice to make."

"God, Sam! Don't you want this? Don't you want a _normal_ life?" He gestured to the pile of envelopes. "This is how you get it. School, a family, a house with a picket fence. That's the option you're supposed to choose." He pointed to the mess of first aid supplies. "You're gonna choose _that_? Living out of a car? Fighting things most people couldn't imagine? Dying if you can't read Latin right?"

"But you can choose it."

Dean groaned. "I. Didn't. Have. A choice. Dad didn't give me one."

"Who said Dad's gonna let _me_?"

"Who said anything about telling Dad?"

"Dean, he'll freak."

"So, you're going?"

"Dean, I'm not gonna let you do this."

"Do you want to go, or not? That's all it comes down to."

Sam was quiet for a long time. "Yes."

"Then why argue. If this is what you want, then I want it too."

"I can't ask you to do this."

Dean sighed and sat down at the table. "As far apart as we've grown over the years...Why is it so hard for you to leave?"

"I don't know. The same reason it's hard for you to let me go."

"You sound like a chick, Sam."

Sam smiled and sat across from his brother. "Sorry. But you kind of did there, too."

"I guess I did. But, at the risk of this whole thing getting too 'deep'...No matter where we are, how many miles are between us, we'll always be brothers. Nothing's ever gonna change that."

Sam nodded, uncertain how to respond to Dean's emotional honesty. "So...how do we deal with Dad?"

"Just leave that to me. You just worry about which school you're gonna go to."


End file.
